Juan Manuel Barca
07/14/2021 6:05 AM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 07/14/2021 7:36 AM
The second semester began with exchange rate tensions and increased monetary issuance.
Thus, in the first week of July,
the Central Bank transferred profits for $ 80,000 million to finance the Treasury
.
The funds are for the payment of salaries through Banco Nación, the purchase of dollars for the payment of foreign debt and debt maturities in pesos.
The issuance is one of the ways to cover the fiscal deficit. The others are taking debt in the local market and raising taxes or reducing spending. But they all face limits. "
You can't expand the local market too much, it's small. Raise taxes, either. And lower spending with the elections, either,
" said
Andrés Borenstein
, chief economist at
Econviews
.
Martín Guzmán decided this year to reduce the issuance
and expand the placements of bonds in pesos to finance his goal of a total deficit of almost 6%.
Along these lines, the Ministry of Economy
received $ 410,000 million from the BCRA so far this year
in temporary advances and profit transfers, consuming
a third of the balance planned
for all of 2021.
This meant that in the first half of the year the monetary base slid at a rate of 1.8% per month.
But
since June, monetary policy has been expansionary again
.
One of the main reasons was the purchase of foreign currency from the private sector
, which meant an increase in issuance of $ 57,000 million and in the last 30 days, of $ 31,000 million.
The body chaired by Miguel Pesce bought about US $ 800 million in July and US $ 7.2 billion in the year.
The objective is to create a cushion
for lower foreign exchange income from soybeans
and to sustain the exchange rate anchor,
allocating US $ 900 million to contain the parallel dollar. As a result, the Central accumulated less than half of these purchases in net reserves.
The other dollar vacuum is debt payments
and passive repo transactions with the exterior (swaps, for example), for which pesos are also required.
The greater liquidity, however, resulted from the disarming of repos by the financial system and
the payment of interest on remunerated liabilities
of the BCRA for
about $ 500,000 million
in June, according to FIEL calculations.
E
l new twist to the Treasury will
also serve to meet the deadlines
for the portion of letters that could not renew at the
end of June.
Economy accumulated in the first half of the year a financial balance of $ 350,000 million with the help of public banks and the ANSeS.
But
the bulk of those pesos is being used to buy dollars
.
The monetary expansion coincides with an apparent
loosening of the fiscal policy
undertaken in the first five months.
In that period, higher income (from soybeans and the contribution of large fortunes) and the liquefaction of social spending allowed the deficit to be reduced.
While since June, analysts observe a change due to seasonal expenditures and elections.
"If it is not well calibrated, this policy could have more effect on inflation than on activity.
An extremely aggressive expansion of spending
would have to be financed with monetary issuance
in a high proportion, abruptly changing the trend of the first part of the year," he warned. IERAL in a recent report.
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